Transition metal carbides are intriguing materials, some of which have been of industrial interest for a hundred years. These carbides possess attributes which suggest they should be valuable catalysts. It would be anticipated that they should have catalytic activity since, for example, carbides behave as metals with properties enhanced by the addition of carbon. They are electrical conductors and some are even semi-conductors at low temperatures. Their high degree of chemical inertness should allow them to be used as catalysts under hostile conditions. The carbides have unusually high thermal stabilities; consequently, they should be useful at very high temperatures without catalyst deactivation due to sintering. The technical literature reports the use of tungsten carbide as catalysts for various reactions, however, most of the work done in the literature deals with the use of bulk, powdered tungsten carbide. It would be highly advantageous to be able to provide supported tungsten carbide materials having higher surface areas. These materials in addition to being less costly than the bulk materials, would have higher activities and most likely different catalytic properties in general than the bulk materials. Attempts to convert tungsten oxide supported on acidic catalysts supports at modest temperatures, say below 800.degree. C., have not been successful. Apparently tungsten oxide reacts with oxidic supports to produce a compound which is relatively resistant to carbonization by typical carbiding atmospheres. At higher temperatures say above 800.degree. C. these oxidic supported materials can be converted to tungsten carbide. However, processes operating at these temperatures severely reduce the surface area of the support by sintering. The resulting materials have surface areas comparable to or only slightly greater than bulk powdered materials. A process to produce high surface area (greater than 50 meters square per gram) supported tungsten carbide materials would provide compositions that would be uniquely useful in catalytic reactions.